Learning
There are many different views about what "learning" is and what the word means. Here at Wikiversity learning implies a mental development - new connections between the brain-cells with which we think.
Click on learning in the box below to see some earlier definitions from persons great and good.
Famously, an ancient Greek philosopher, some 2500 years ago, said:
- A complete formal education is far worse than no education at all!
Introduction
There are two basic 'flavors' w:education where we explore and enjoy ourselves, and w:training where we are 'formed' - which is what mostly happens in schools. We need both if we are to understand our problems and discover their 'best' solutions.
For example: every electrician has to have training in safety and technology, but education is needed to discover how individual clients prefer their installation by exploring their needs and wants, and then fitting appropriate components that help the user enjoy the work and recommend that service to friends.
Learning preferences
There are five ways to learn, and we each have our preferences. Psychologists sometimes use a chart to help clients discover their likes and dislikes in order to try to persuade us to use each technique and so to make a round or reasonably pentagonal graph.
- Aural - listening and arguing
- Active and Reflective - getting one's hands dirty - trying different solutions to problems
- Written - reading and researching (as you are now) plus writing essays, explanations and so on
- Graphic - drawing, especially making graphs, using geometry or algebraic models to explain things
- Kinesthetic - a big word which just means using all five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight and sound) to make sense of the world and resolve difficulties using our 'natural' experience
Some challenges for you personally
Within this project you may wish to explore your own ideas, For example
- What do you understand by the word learning - is it anything like the definition above?
- What is your opinion about the q:quotations of famous thinkers
- Why should anyone ever bother to learn? (hint: Aristotle thought it was human nature)
- How, when, where and why does learning happen, for you? (classroom/sportsfield/hobbies/etc.)
- Which learning styles do you prefer? (Try to rate each of them between 1-not much and 5-very much)
- how do you explain your ideas to others? (diagrams, pictures, analogy, verbal explanation etc?
- What factors effect learning or effect how a person learns? (good/bad memories, discomfort etc)
- Find out about new learning techniques, methods, processes and systems? (software, mobile apps etc)
Challenges within a 'learning situation'
- Are some people "learning disabled" and are there any ways to ease or overcome such problems?
- Can educators be "teaching disabled" - actually discourage their students?
- Is saying someone is "learning disabled" or "teaching disabled" morally or ethically right?
- How can Wikiversity improve learning for me and for others?
- Should there be limits to what can be learned or how on Wikiversity?
- Please leave a message when Wikiversity helps you succeeded.
See also
- Wikiversity:Learning
- w:Learning
- Wikiversity:Meetings/Learning on Wikiversity
- Developing Wikiversity through action research
- Wikiversity:Learning projects
- School of Free Learning
- Wikiversity:Personal learning environment (examples at Category:PLE)
- Search for learning
- Category:Learning